On October 21, 2021, actor Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set of Rust, a western movie that was being filmed in New Mexico. Recently George Stephanopoulos of ABC News interviewed Baldwin about the shooting. (You can view that interview in its entirety by clicking on this link. ) While Baldwin punctuated his answers with tears and expressions of anguish and sympathy for Hutchins’ family, from a legal standpoint, the interview was nothing short of disastrous. As explained below, Baldwin illogically and unconvincingly denied responsibility for the killing and lamely attempted to shift blame for Hutchins’ death to others including, stupefyingly enough, the victim herself. In the process, he effectively and unwittingly confessed to committing involuntary manslaughter. The killing took place as Baldwin and Hutchins were doing a “marking rehearsal” in a faux church structure where a gunfight scene was to be filmed. According to Baldwin, Assistant Director Dave Halls called out “cold gun” (meaning that it held no live ammunition) as he handed a revolver to the actor. Baldwin said that he did not personally check to see if the gun was loaded since that was the responsibility of the production’s armorer, 24 year-old Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. But, as will be discussed below, Reed was not on the set when Halls handed the gun to Baldwin. Baldwin said that, a week previously, Reed had given him a one and one-half hour “safety demonstration” during which they had fired “the pistol,” an apparent reference to the revolver in question. Left unsaid was whether or not that training session involved the use of live ammunition. Although Rust was only the second movie on which Reed had served as an armorer, Baldwin “assumed that she was up to the job because she was hired.” Also, she had done nothing during the safety demonstration that concerned him. During the marking rehearsal in the church set, Hutchins directed Baldwin on how and ...
No hoodwinking or hornswoggling here.
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